'Expect' fulfills expectations; 'Paquita' only passable By Mieko Sasaki for The Daily Yomiuri

The New National Theatre Ballet, Tokyo, closed its 2002-03 season on a mixed note, staging the contemporary Dance Theatron No.9 and a classical ballet program comprising "La Sylphide" and "Paquita."

Dance Theatron No. 9 premiered two pieces commissioned by the theater: "Expect," choreographed by Kuniko Kisanuki, and "Tokyo Dance Hall," by Shinji Nakamura. "Expect" grabbed the attention of viewers from the start, with groups of female dancers dashing around the long, pale green floor, creating a sense of expectation.

Instead, I went chez Maxim with Roland Petit. In Tokyo, where the National Ballet has been playing Petit's ballet-bouffe La Chauve Souris. This is his version of Die Fledermaus, and it is a soufflé made by a superlative chef, light as air, deliciously flavoured with wit and shenanigans, and utterly irresistible. And irresistibly done by the New National Theatre Ballet.

The troupe takes its name from the spiffing 1997 complex which houses the theatre - handsome wooden interior, excellent sightlines, superb acoustic. Petit, the last great classical choreographer of the 20th century and still, thank heavens, hard at work, staged the ballet in Monte Carlo more than 20 years ago.

In the Daily Yomiuri, Mikiko Miyakawa interviews former Bolshoi Ballet director Alexei Fadeechev, who is in Tokyo to advise and consult on the New National Theatre Ballet's productions of The Sleeping Beauty and Don Quixote:

AS DAVID Bintley sits in his Tokyo hotel room, the dancer-cum-artistic director of Birmingham Royal Ballet has lost none of the energy that has driven him over the past 30 years.

After a long, humid day rehearsing Carmina Burana with Japan's New National Theatre Ballet, Bintley's mind continues to race with ideas for the following day's teaching. His excitement is justified: not only will this be the first time that a Japanese company has used a piece from Bintley's repertoire, but the NNTB are hailing the choreographer's arrival in the east as "opening a new chapter" in the Japanese ballet company's history.

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